


Talk some sense to me

by looneytails (mixthealphabet)



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Bellamy-centric, Character Study, F/M, Friendship, Implied/Referenced Torture, Post-Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-01
Updated: 2015-09-01
Packaged: 2018-04-18 13:48:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4708205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mixthealphabet/pseuds/looneytails
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of Mount Weather, Bellamy Blake finds out that life goes on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Talk some sense to me

_I found love where it wasn’t supposed to be. Right in front of me._

 

Two weeks have passed when he first thinks of leaving.

It's not a serious thought — it's just an idea that crosses his mind as Bellamy trudges through the woods. It comes from a place of loneliness and guilt and exhaustion, but it is also an impossibility, so he quickly shuts it down.

The camp is not doing well.

The number of kids that they were able to rescue from the mountain is even smaller than he had imagined. The faces of those who are no longer there stick like ivy to the inside of his eyelids, appearing clearer every time he lays down to sleep. Bellamy remembers Fox and how she had clung to him, how he'd told her she would be okay.

They'd buried her a week later.

It’s difficult to be around them, but it’s worse to be around the adults. Even after everything, they seem to believe that the delinquents aren’t prepared for the kind of responsibility that comes with running a camp. They are very good at ignoring that their time in the Dropship had ever existed, but not that good at handling the kids.

Miller and his dad are a constant by Bellamy’s side, towering shadows that warn away the distrustful glances and the reproach of the ignorant. He is grateful for their loyalty — it’s more than he’d ever hoped — but he is also bothered by their protectiveness.

There is no real reason for their presence. Bellamy is not the leader anymore, he is not in the council and he is not part of the guard. Miller says he’s a hero, but that word feels like a collar around his neck and a syringe down his throat, like suffocating between walls that are too close and getting closer.

Bellamy refuses to be what the Mountain had tried to turn him into.

They don’t know about the blood spilled against white tiles even before Clarke and Monty and the radiation that leaked into the underground and burned those people raw. Maya is not here to talk about Lovejoy — hands around necks — and Fox never got to tell the others about the bullets he saved her with.

They should know better. He has always been the monster here.

So, Bellamy thinks about running away. He thinks about how he wouldn't be as careless as Clarke, who’d left with nothing more than the clothes on her back. He would go back to camp Jaha. He would kiss his sister’s cheek and shake Lincoln’s hand. He would sit with Raven while she supervised Wick and Monty. He would tell Jasper he was sorry. Then, he would take a pack and he would disappear from their lives.

Even as he goes through it in his head, Bellamy knows that he could never do it.

There are only so many goodbyes a guy can take.

Instead, he kneels down onto the dried leaves and builds a fire.

A long time passes before anything around him changes. Bellamy can tell that hours have gone by because the sun above him shifts west and the breeze begins to chill him through the layers of leather and cotton.

Sometimes, he still struggles with the sensory overload that is life on Earth. The controlled coolness of the Ark could never make him feel alive like this.

Bellamy is throwing another log onto the fire when Raven Reyes breaks through the dense vegetation. She grumbles as she does so, cursing when her crutch gets stuck on a root, but it barely slows her down as she comes hurtling towards him.

The boy admires her fierceness, her determination. Men and nature alike are yet to create an obstacle that can stop Raven.

She wavers on the spot and hits his shin with her crutch, but Bellamy presumes that was on purpose.

“You look like shit,” she says to him, before dropping down by his side.

“Yeah, well.” He grits his teeth. “You try saving your sorry asses from a bunch of blood-draining maniacs. It’s gotta be someone else’s turn, by now.”

Raven’s lips do this thing where they press together in a thin line and he knows she is trying not to smile at him. Bellamy knocks her brace with his foot and she throws a handful of dirt his way.

“You try being the one getting drained, then we’ll talk,” she mocks. When she turns back to the fire, however, there’s a darkness that doesn’t quite leave her eyes.

He knows how difficult it is to talk about the tortures they’ve gone through. Their enemies here seem to multiply, never fade, like finding a termite amidst the wood, only to realize it’s an infestation.

Earth is just crawling with new threats.

“I did,” Bellamy admits after a beat. He’s almost proud of the stability of his voice, but the feeling is suffocated by the dread that wells up in his chest.

Raven examines his face with a frown.

He knows it’s something that the others have wondered about, something they have discussed in hushed whispers during dinner. They’re kids and as bad at being subtle as it’s humanly possible.

When she does say something, Raven’s voice is lower and more careful than he’s ever heard her sound. It’s probably the only sign he will get that she is actually a bit shocked by his admittance.

“What?”

Bellamy lets a second pass as he chooses his next words. She has caught him in a moment of vulnerability, which is probably the only reason why he is still talking.

“I did get drained. They thought I was a Grounder,” he says by way of explanation. “Maya was the one who saved me. And now she is dead.”

Raven stares at him for a moment. There is no pity in the way she looks at him, and Bellamy supposes that’s at least better than the rage and the pain that would be his sister’s reaction. There are others who would want to know more, as well as those who would question how much he has been affected by it.

As it is, the girl by his side nods.

“That sucks and all, but we’re not starting a club, if that’s what you’re expecting.” She smirks.

Bellamy snorts, and the situation somehow seems a little less grave.

There’s silence.

In the firelight, Raven looks as beautiful as he remembers from her first days on the ground. Her skin is darker than most of the others, a lot like his. It is something that they share from Factory and Mecha, the racial segregation that never quite disappeared, even after the end of the world.

Her eyes are dark and sharp, and her gaze prickles the skin of his neck, even though he can never tell what she thinks about when she looks at him. It’s different from the glares that he still receives from some of the adults, though just as intense as their judgement.

Bellamy imagines they could have been happy together.

“We are train wrecks, Bellamy.”

He startles at her words, glancing at Raven over his shoulder. It takes him a moment to realize she’s not responding to something he said. He thinks he might have caught her in a moment of vulnerability, too.

“This fucking life has to get better somehow.” She crosses her arms, gripping tightly at the material of her jacket. “I thought coming down would mean — I don’t even know. New opportunities?  But it’s just the same old _shit_.”

He turns to face her fully.

“I think that’s just life, Raven.” He runs a hand through his face, thinking. “I know that you’ve gone through a lot, but good things _have_ come from this. Octavia finally has a chance to do something with her life, the delinquents have grown, and grown _closer_. You know you have a family in me, in Monty.” He pauses, then smirks. “In Wick.”

 “Shut up!” she snaps, grimacing.

As he laughs, Bellamy receives a mouthful of dirt, courtesy of the annoyed mechanic.

“Ok, ok…” He coughs. “Just saying. It will get better.”

Raven nods once, giving the fire a tight-lipped smile. “I’m sorry,” she says.

“For what?” he bites back, incredulous.

She snickers, but doesn’t turn to look at him.

“You know what. Don’t think I didn’t notice your damn stare, earlier.” She smiles at his frown. “We could have been good together, if we’d met before all this.”

Bellamy shrugs. “Maybe so.” He lets his eyes shift to the trees, to where the vegetation is denser and where it hinders their sight. “Maybe not. Still, you won’t ever have to apologize to me — not after everything I did.”

Raven leans back onto her hands and rolls her eyes at him. The tension from before seems to leave her posture.

“No, seriously.” He reaches out to touch her shoulder. “Thank you for forgiving me. I didn’t deserve it.”

It’s her turn to shrug.

He can tell she’s uncomfortable with his honesty, but Bellamy decides he doesn’t care. He is getting better at being more open with the people he loves. It comes as a consequence of so many close calls, he supposes, but it might just be that he’s getting older.

“Yeah, you were a fucking asshole, but… I can’t blame you for being afraid, Bellamy.” When her eyes soften, he wonders if she is remembering how he looked sprawled under the sheets, unconsciously curling towards a body that wouldn’t be there in the morning. “And I can’t hold those mistakes against you when you’ve proven time and time again that you have changed.”

The corner of his lips lift slightly, but Bellamy forces himself to frown.

“You are too understanding.”

Raven snickers as she starts to get up, and it turns into a laugh when Bellamy scrambles up to offer her a hand.

She dusts herself off.

“I’ve always understood you, big bad Blake.” She fixes him with that strange look, the one he could never figure out. “I know you are not as bad as you pretend to be.”

Bellamy breaks their gaze and sighs.

The world around them quiets down with the descending sun, but it doesn’t unnerve him as it once did. The night brings coolness and solitude, but the air is fresh in his lungs and oh-so-different from that within the mountain.

“It takes a monster to keep the other monsters away.”

Raven punches him on the arm, making him wince. When Bellamy turns back to her, she’s looking up at him through narrowed eyes, lips in a thin line.

“Except you are not a sentinel. And you’re not a monster, freaking nerd.” She growls. “In case you forgot, you’re our leader. Time to start acting like one again.”

He smiles at her and it might be the first genuine smile he has mustered since the battle.

“Thank you for coming here,” he tells Raven as she grabs her crutches and moves in the direction of the camp.

“Thank you for staying,” she calls back, slowing down to use a branch to maneuver herself over a fallen tree.

“I had nowhere else to go, Raven!” he shouts, chuckling.

She glances at him over her shoulder and lifts her eyebrows, before looking behind him, towards the same spot in the vegetation he’d stared at earlier.

“I think we both know that’s not true.”

* * *

A month has passed since his talk with Raven when Bellamy is called to the medbay by the command of Chancellor Griffin.

Time blends together now, in the midst of construction and training and reformulation. He is working as a guard, helping with the new cadets and with the Earth skills classes, but he has also been chosen as the representative of the initial 100. It’s more responsibility and authority than he’d ever hoped to have back at the Ark, but it keeps him busy and it keeps him sane.

When he passes by the training grounds, Octavia and Lincoln are demonstrating how to properly handle a spear. He can see Miller in the crowd, adjusting grips and rolling his eyes at everything, and the familiarity of it brings a smile to his face.

They are doing all right.

The new medbay is made of steel and wood, with insulation against the upcoming winter and electricity that Wick is pulling from a nearby waterfall. It is the first building that they have built and it took them the past month, but Bellamy figures it wouldn’t be too dramatic to call it one of the most beautiful things he has ever seen.

Octavia disagrees, but she is already half Grounder, so he doesn’t really trust her taste.

He puts in the code to access Abby’s private office, then almost regrets it when he sees that she’s hurriedly drying her eyes.

Tears don’t scare him. Between his mother and his sister, he has seen plenty of breakdowns. He has had his share of them, too, but Clarke is not here to attest to that.

The jacket in the chancellor’s hands is her daughter’s, which explains quite a lot.

“Are you okay?” he asks, uncertain if the woman would prefer him to leave.

However, Abby merely nods and puts the jacket down onto her lap.

“Yes, I’m sorry.” She breathes out shakily. “I didn’t call you here to see me cry.”

Bellamy feels awkward about her apology, because there’s no real reason for it. He knows how it feels to be overwhelmed with sadness and it’s nothing to be _sorry_ about.

“You can cry, if you want. There’s no shame in that.”

Abby studies him with her reddened eyes, and the steel in her gaze make the similarities with her daughter seem almost absurd.

“You are not what I expected, Bellamy Blake.”

He blushes at the comment. He knows what she’s talking about, of course. He was once the boy with the illegal sister, the janitor who shot her best friend. He was “Whatever the hell we want” and avoiding the consequences of his actions.

“No, Chancellor,” he counters. “I was exactly what you expected. Then I changed.”

She gives him an approving look, before her gaze falls back to the jacket. “You have all changed a lot after we sent you here, haven’t you?” She wrinkles her forehead. “The things she did…”

“Had to be done,” he states. It throws him back to a time before the failed alliance, when he’d said those exact words to Clarke.

His voice has turned heavier, the littlest bit irritated, but he doesn’t apologize. Abby tightens her lips at this, and Bellamy simply clenches his jaw.

“Right before we sent you down, I told her that I knew her first instinct would be to help others, but that I needed her to think of herself first.”

He doesn’t need to tell her that Clarke went against her mother’s wishes. It’s in their blood, somehow, to defend the integrity of the many over their own desires. They are the women who killed the men they loved in order to protect their people.

“It seems she’s finally listening to you,” he comments instead.

Abby’s eyes widen for a second, like this is something that hadn’t occurred to her until this moment. Bellamy can see that she’s tearing up again.

“Yes, well,” she scrambles. “That’s enough of that. I actually wanted to talk to you about a scout group that ran into Grounders today.”

Bellamy turns quickly to the doors, frowning.

“I didn’t see anyone in the ER. Were they moved to Intensive Care?”

Abby shakes her head at his concern, gesturing for him to stop.

“They aren’t hurt. The Grounders wanted to request an audience.” She purses her lips. “They refuse to talk to anyone but you.”

Bellamy blinks.

“Me?” he protested. “Are you sure?”

“They spoke of the two leaders who exterminated the Mountain Men,” she replies dryly. "I'm quite sure.”

His face closes down at the mention of Mount Weather, but he nods.

“Lead the way, Chancellor.”

* * *

The Grounders wait in a clearing just left of the river where Jasper was attacked. Apparently, when asked why they refuse to come to camp, the group answered that they did not mean to pass onto Sky People land.

Bellamy wasn’t aware they had _land_ , but whatever.

More surprising, though, is how few people there are. There is an elderly woman dressed in fur, who smells of the aromatic leaves Harper likes to burn, and a small girl, who is clearly her second. Two men stand behind them: guards, with long curved blades and ragged beards. And then there’s one last person, tall and thin, whose figure and complexion are swallowed by their coat.

They don’t look like they could put up much of a fight, but Bellamy has learned not to rely on appearances.

As he approaches them, the older woman fixes him with big dark eyes. It is strange, but he thinks she already knows who he is, despite the fact that he has Abby and Miller with him.

“ _Belomi kom skai kru,_ ” she calls in a heavy accent. “ _Gona_ and _heda_ of your people. We have been searching for you.”

Although Lincoln has been teaching him a bit of Trigedasleng, it’s from his time protecting Clarke that he recognizes the words.

“ _Ai laik gona, ba ai laik nou heda_.”

_I am a warrior, but I am not a leader._

She smiles at his response, though he’s not sure if it’s because of what he said or because of how he said it.

“I appreciate your respect for our culture, but I doubt you will have the vocabulary necessary for this conversation.”

It’s the fifth person, who has moved to stand at his back. Their voice is rough, but distinctively feminine, familiar enough that it makes him turn.

“You helped me inside the mountain.” Bellamy tilts his head to the side, confused.

She nods.

“And then I left you there.” Her smile is harsh and there is no light in her eyes; everything about her looks like broken glass and sharp edges. “I am Echo from the Ice Nation. This is our _heda_.” She gestures to the older woman, joining their hands. “My mother.”

The little girl bounces on the balls of her feet, clearly anxious to introduce herself, but she maintains her position at the leader’s back.

“I am Persephone,” the woman says, “and this is Hebe, my second.” Bellamy nods in recognition, bowing down to the girl, who stifles a giggle into her palm. “We have come to invite you to a feast. You may bring a party of three.”

“With all due respect, Persephone,” he starts, gruffly. “I do not trust you.”

She blinks slowly, pensive, while Hebe pouts behind her.

“You have every reason to be careful with my kind. Our Commander’s pact with the Mountain Men has become as known as your bravery. Our alliance wavers. It is a time of danger and the enemies are many.”

He takes a moment to consider this.

“So you’ve come to make peace, to remove one threat.”

Persephone shakes her head and then glances towards Hebe, letting the girl step forward. She is smaller than Charlotte, but something about her expression carries the same raggedness that he sees in Echo.

“We’ve come to establish trade,” she states. “Peace was stablished the moment that your Other neutralized the Mountain’s leader.”

Other. That’s how Lincoln said they would call him: the one that is not I. It’s meant to signify that he doesn’t belong to either of the groups, but it only serves to remind Bellamy of everything the man has done for his sister and for his people.

“If there’s peace, you should have let us know.”

Hebe looks up at Persephone before replying.

“The Commander warned the nations. The peace with the skaikru holds, because of the service they did to our kind.” A small smile plays at her lips. “We let you know now.”

When he returns her grin, Bellamy wonders if Persephone is aware of his weakness for children, if she knew that he would be more open to thess news if they came from the innocence of a little girl.

“Our council has traveled with us in order to meet you,” Echo says, interrupting his thoughts. “We have settled in treekru territory. At sundown, take west from the waterfall and you will find us.”

x

Bellamy chooses Miller, Octavia and Lincoln to accompany him to the feast, because if he has to spend his evening with a bunch of elderly Grounders, then he is gonna do it with the people he likes and not damn Kane and Abby.

Lincoln tries to advise him against being so reckless, because his presence might be seen as disrespect, but he is already learning their language and their ways; the Ice Nation can shove their discontent up their asses.

They arrive just as the last rays of sunshine disappears atop the trees. The drums are already playing and there are people dancing, but it’s Echo that grabs their attention.

She stands on a stage, singing.

Although he can’t quite comprehend the words, he can tell that she is good. The people around them move with the rhythm of the song, in steps that must be familiar to them. There are more Grounders than he expected, dozens of children that mix with the warriors, creating one joyous mass.

“Welcome, skaikru!” Hebe calls above the music. She skips towards them from a nearby group.

Persephone sits not far away, flanked by four elders that must compose the council. She acknowledges the newcomers with a wave, and they were probably the ones who sent Hebe, because Bellamy is suddenly being dragged towards their table.

Octavia smiles at everything, which is the exact opposite of what Miller does, but Lincoln doesn’t seem aggravated, so this should be fine.

“You got here just in time,” Persephone announces when they are close enough.

He wants to ask what for, but the drumming quickens until the sound is almost deafening. And then it stops.

What comes next is Echo’s voice, clear in the abrupt silence. She leans down on the stage, until she touches the hand of a child that reaches for her, and starts to unravel the tale of her abduction, of the things the Mountain Man did as they prepared her for the cages.

Bellamy can feel his sister shift behind him, closing the space between them until she has an arm looped through his. He can do little else than let her in as he watches, stunned, Echo’s performance.

Miller sidles up to him, and Lincoln closes a hand over Octavia’s shoulder. Their proximity is a comfort, despite the absurdity of it all, but it does very little to stop the coldness that creeps down his spine.

The Grounders cheer when Echo describes Lovejoy’s death, and Bellamy has to clench his jaw to keep himself from throwing up.

Light blond hair flashes through his mind, the line of children that bounced down a well-lit corridor. All of them dead.

Echo makes him into a hero. From the way he had allowed himself to be taken in her stead, to his battle with the guard, to his reappearance to free them and his plan. He is the Trojan Horse, epic in his tragedy.

Bellamy hates it.

He thinks Persephone can tell, because she stays quiet as her daughter walks towards them. Octavia’s grip on his arm is centering; it stops him from doing anything too harsh. He imagines it’s the same for her, because he can feel her shaking. Whether it is from anger or sadness, he doesn’t know.

“It is done,” Echo says to her mother.

This, more than anything, is what makes him shake away from Octavia’s grasp.

“How could you?” he urges, brows furrowed. “What right did you have?”

She glares, seemingly bored by his display.

“You weren’t the only one in there, _alien_.”

Bellamy shakes his head.

“Then keep to your own story, _Grounder_.”

Echo’s expression twists in fury.

“I made you a legend among my people!”

“I never asked for that!”

She surges forward at this, as if ready to attack, and, for a second, he is almost satisfied to have gotten a reaction out of her. It passes, and he is suddenly faced with Persephone, who has put herself between them.

“Turn away,” she tells her daughter, who glares at him, then bows her head down in assent. “And you,” the elder turns to Bellamy, “walk with me.”

He accepts.

“If that is what you all think happened inside Mount Weather, then I don’t think you’ll actually like me all that much,” he states as soon as they’re out of listening range. “That is not me.”

Persephone scoffs, dragging her staff across the muddied ground. She hadn’t had it on her earlier, and Bellamy thinks that might have been a matter of strategy, of looking healthier than she is, because she leans into it with each step.

“That is a symbol, boy. It’s the image that our people need right now, since our common enemy is gone.” She waves a hand in the air. “Besides that, I don’t particularly care about who or what you are.”

Bellamy folds his arms over his chest.

“Is that the true reason why you are here?”

Instead of answering, Persephone looks up towards the sky, propping herself against the staff.

“Did you know that the Ice Nation was the last to join the Alliance?” Her unfocused eyes shine in the moonlight. “Our compliance to the new Commander could only come from the recognition of her spirit. So we took the woman she loved and we tortured her. Partly because we wanted to see how strong Costia was, but mostly because we could. We wanted to see if the Commander would break.”

Bellamy swallows dryly, shoulders stiffening.

“Lexa made Clarke kill her first love in order to establish peace.”

Persephone sighs.

“I heard. Still, blood must have blood. The situations were very different.”

“It’s a pattern I’m not willing to risk,” he bites back.

The woman meets his glare with a sad smile.

“I don’t need you to prove your strength, _Belomi_. I can see in your eyes that you have suffered.” She lifts a hand to his cheek. “Maybe, indirectly, that’s our fault too.”

He doesn’t know what to say to that. There are things in his past that he is trying to overcome; horrors that came long before his descend to the ground. They are the truths from which he is still trying to escape.

“It’s why I trust you will understand the importance of this symbol. Of your legend.”

He takes a deep breath, forcing back a pained grimace.

“There is no glory in death, Persephone.”

The elderly woman hums.

“Tell that to the ancient heroes, my boy.” She points her staff towards her people. “When I’m gone, they will forget my kindness and my words. My daughter and my brother will remember me as Nike, the woman before the title. Hebe will become Persephone and she too will stain her hands with blood.”

Bellamy shakes his head.

“Is that what you want for her?”

They can see Hebe in the middle of the dancers, spinning amidst the rest of the children. Her dark curls are wilder than ever, and he hopes she will never lose this purity.

“No,” Persephone breathes out. “I want the violence to end with us. When I took Costia from the Commander, I was alone. Hebe, as fanciful as always, took her time to find a new host, and age can claw away at certain parts of you.”

He takes a moment to study her. Draped against her staff, with a wrinkly frown and with her boots deep in the mud, she looks exhausted.

“Do you regret it?”

She nods, so slow that he almost doesn’t catch the movement in the darkness of the forest.

“My people unite under my image, because they believe I made the girl stronger.” She scoffs. “Given what happened in the mountain, I think I just made her cruel.”

Bellamy can’t say that he disagrees. Nonetheless, he has his own ghosts, so he simply clenches his jaw.

He helps her walk back to the elders and they discuss the possibility of an exchange of knowledge between their people.

The feast ends and Octavia leans against his shoulder the entire track back to camp.

* * *

Bellamy wakes up to the stickiness of his skin against the material of the mattress, and he has to throw the furs away from his body so that he can finally breathe. It’s the third nightmare that week, the third time that he opens his eyes to a completely dark room, unsure if he is still inside Mount Weather.

Despite the sweat that runs down his chest, the coldness that seeps into his tent makes him shiver. He knows it’s not because of the room, but it still makes him feel claustrophobic, so Bellamy pulls his boots on and steps out into the moonlit night.

Lincoln is on watch. He is running away from the remnants of what the mountain did to him, too, and the darkness has a way of crawling into their bones, so the Grounder takes the graveyard shifts when he can. Bellamy understands the appeal; the crickets and the fresh air are a rare kind of calmness.

“Octavia is worried,” Lincoln says when Bellamy joins him at the wall.

They are in shouting distance from the next guard, but the cadets know better than to bother them.

“She needs to stop.” Bellamy sighs. “I don’t want her to feel responsible for me.”

The look Lincoln sends him is dispassionate. The two are not exactly close, but they have grown to understand each other pretty well, so it has gotten easier to recognize his expressions.

“That’s hypocritical,” Lincoln remarks anyway.

“My sister, my responsibility,” Bellamy chants back. “There’s nothing hypocritical about that. O has suffered enough.” He exhales forcibly. “She doesn’t need my shit on top of hers.”

The Grounder stays quiet for a moment, impassive as he was taught to be.

“She would appreciate it, though.” Lincoln shifts the spear in his hands, eyeing a spot in the vegetation. “Sheltering her has never been a good solution. Not down here.”

Bellamy tightens his jaw, but he doesn’t try to argue. He loves Octavia enough to acknowledge that he hasn’t always made the best of choices in regards to her well-being. He is _trying_ to let go of his overprotectiveness.

“I wouldn’t know where to start,” he confesses.

“You could always start with the Mountain.”

The abruptness of the voice makes the two of them jump, and Bellamy whirls around to find his sister standing a few feet away, leaning against the side of a cabin.

He doesn’t know how she got so close without them realizing, but he imagines it has something to do with the fact that Miller is right and Octavia has become a fucking samurai. It’s awful for his ego, but he is proud of her.

“You heard Echo’s story, O.” Bellamy runs a hand through his face. “What else do you want me to say?”

Octavia has her hair down, for a change. It reminds him of how young she actually is, under all the bravado she puts on. He wonders if that’s how other people see him, as well.

“I want to know why you blame yourself so much!” she exclaims, then looks towards the guard to check if he heard her. “I want to know why you did what you did.” She pauses, wrinkles her nose with the effort to continue speaking. “So I can forgive you.”

Lincoln is looking at him, too.

They seem expectant, as if this is something that they have been trying to figure out. Bellamy’s fondness fills his chest and warms the grief away; it is reassuring to know that they don’t anticipate the worst from him anymore.

He drops his shoulders, deflating.

“I had to save you.”

Octavia frowns. She doesn’t know that he means her, specifically, but Bellamy is not about to clear that up. He’s done with blaming his sister for the bad decisions he makes. The massacre is his burden to carry.

His desolation must show in his expression, because Octavia closes the distance between them in a few easy steps and puts her arms around him. In her sleeping clothes, she is soft and comforting, and she somehow still smells of the cheap detergent their mother used on the apartment.

“I don’t blame you, Bell,” she mutters against his shoulder.

“I do,” he replies, and his eyes meet Lincoln’s over his sister’s head.

The other man nods his head in understanding, then turns back towards the darkness that surrounds the camp.

Bellamy takes a step away from Octavia. He looks at her, letting the dread settle in the pit of his stomach.

“They—” he chokes out. “They had to get rid of the radiation, before they put me inside the cage.” He raises his gaze to Lincoln once more, but the Grounder has his back to them. “The process is… Difficult.”

Octavia clenches her jaw, a habit he recognizes.

“Lincoln told me about it.” She makes a small sound, and Bellamy can’t determine if it’s a growl or a sob. “That’s not difficult. That’s torture.”

He shrugs.

“Yeah, well. Karma.” Octavia glares at him, opens her mouth to say something, but Bellamy raises a hand and gestures for her to stop. “It’s no excuse for killing innocent people.”

His sister looks down at her hands, a terrible sadness in the line of her shoulders.

“None of us is innocent.”

* * *

Bellamy knows that many of the kids don’t want to be here. The destruction intimidates them, and the heavy presence of the Grounders still triggers their rage. They dance around the people of TonDC, never straying too far from their groups.

Three months have gone by, but their betrayal is a wound that won’t ever heal completely.

That’s not to say that things haven’t changed.

Echo, a few feet behind him, skillfully chops a tree trunk into several boards. She has been a great help during the past weeks, acting as a representative of the Ice Nation amidst the Arkers. She is blunt in her reasoning and calm with the children, a better diplomat than he could have ever expected.

“You do realize what Persephone’s actual plan is, right?” Octavia asks, not even bothering to look away from the Grounder woman.

“Yes.”

He had taken some time to notice it, probably a lot longer than his sister, but the Ice Nation isn’t trying to be particularly subtle about their intentions. The peace and the trade are part of an alliance that is unsteady at best, and they seem to believe a more stable arrangement needs to take place.

And Echo is trying to woo him.

It’s the weirdest thing that has ever happened to him, and he has been dropped through space towards a radiation-soaked planet.

“And you’re fine with that?”

Bellamy chuckles at Octavia’s indignation. He knows that she has strong feelings about people being forced into certain situations, he knows that she is thinking about their mother and what she did to make sure they survived, but also about herself and the freedom that the Ark denied her.

“She’s a good person, O.” He shrugs. “As long as we’re both willing, I’m not about to completely refuse. We’ll see where it goes.”

She doesn’t seem satisfied with his answer, but there’s not much else that he can say. Bellamy may hate the politics of it all, but he is learning to be less rash. Octavia, on the other hand, continues to see it as the bureaucracy that dehumanized her existence.

His sister is not completely wrong, but still. It’s peace at a relatively low cost.

“I don’t like this, Bell,” she complains as they lift a set of clay tiles, handing them to Monroe, who is working on a roof. “I had hoped you would marry for love.”

He has to stop himself from snorting, because Octavia wouldn’t appreciate how skeptical he is about such things. She seems to believe that, since she found Lincoln, it means that love is real and everybody should look for it.

As refreshing as it is to know that there are still traces of that bright-eyed little girl in his sister, it’s also a bit of a nuisance.

“I doubt Echo would do this if she had someone waiting for her back home, O.”

He tries to pass her a log, but Octavia folds her arms over her chest and holds his gaze.

“Maybe, but that doesn’t change the fact that _you_ are waiting for someone.”

“This again?” he groans, sidestepping her to give Harper the log.

“I know you, Bell. You almost killed a man because you thought it would help me,” she sighs, “then you almost killed yourself for her.”

“I did it for our people, O. Nothing more.”

He tries to turn away, but Octavia isn’t finished. She grabs his forearm, forcing him to look at her.

“I get it, I swear I do. I might not like the things she did, the things both of you did, but I finally get it. And every day I have to watch that pained look on your face, because you are waiting for her to come back.” When she frowns, her expression mirrors his. “I don’t know if she will.”

Bellamy doesn’t bother answering. He just sends her a somber glare, pulls his arm from her grip and moves towards Echo, where he knows Octavia won’t follow.

The woman acknowledges him with a nod, then goes on with her work.

For the first time in a month, he finds himself thinking of what his life might be like if they go through with Persephone’s plan. He looks at her thick braided hair and at her darkened skin, at the steel in her eyes, and he thinks he could live like this. He could share his labor, his stories, his bed, and she would take it.

“Why Persephone?” he asks as he picks up another axe, sidling up to her.

This makes her pause. Echo sticks her blade into the wood, before eyeing him with curiosity.

“You have not come to our nation.” She nods to herself, as if she needed the justification. “The barren land of the dead, from which no mortal soul can return. No other goddess can ever survive the weight of the ruler.”

Bellamy cocks his head to the side, interested.

“Isn’t Hades the king of the underworld?”

“They are equals, but Hades is far more whimsical than even Hebe.” She doesn’t hide the derision from her tone, but says nothing else. Her gaze is heavy on his shoulders, though, and Bellamy is not sure he wants to ask for clarification.

He clears his throat, averting his eyes from Echo. “What about Hebe? Why choose the goddess of youth?”

“There are things that old age forgets,” she replies with a shrug. “We do not underestimate innocence.”

He almost smiles at that, because it’s not what he expected to hear. The Ice Nation has helped the Arkers with many things, but their record of unnecessary violence is a whisper in their ears, a silent warning of all the cruelties of which these people are capable.

However, with the Grounder Alliance crumbling, the Sky People need all the help that they can get. Bellamy could never _trust_ Persephone, but he knows they are running out of options.

There’s something in Echo’s posture that keeps his lips set in a straight line, though; the stillness of her limbs, the tone of her voice. Even the words themselves feel familiar, like something Persephone had said. She is not insincere in her mimic, but the sentiment just isn’t there.

Echo, nymph of no real voice, whispers back all the little things that her mother and her people have been teaching her since birth.

“But you would still send Hebe to war,” he points out, breaking away from his thoughts.

She nods. “But we would still send Hebe to war.”

If his grimace offends her, Echo doesn’t show it, and the way she stands there, studying him, makes Bellamy want to move away.

“I don’t understand your culture,” he confesses instead.

“But you recognize it.” Her tone doesn’t allow comment. “Many of our people have lost the ancient laws, do not like or accept them, but you fell from the clouds and you _knew_.”

Weirdly enough, it sounds like a compliment.

The possibility is so foreign that it throws Bellamy off. He looks down, then scratches the back of his neck. “I guess I know a bit about the Greek, but I prefer the Roman.”

The smile that Echo sends him is as close to warm as he imagines she can get. It’s incredibly attractive, with the way it softens the edges of her cheekbones and how it contrasts with the sharpness of her eyes.

She looks amused and satisfied and _hungry_.

But it does nothing to the beat of his heart, so Bellamy drives his axe into the tree and tries not to think too much of it.

“Different versions, same stories,” she says, ducking down to grab an armful of logs, head bowed to hide the twist of her lips.

He smirks, watching her through the corner of his eyes. “Not always.”

Echo might roll her eyes at this, but it’s difficult to say for sure. Her resting expression is that of nonchalant reproach. Together, they are probably the sulkiest couple on Earth.

“Is Echo’s story any different?” She bumps his shoulder on her way to where they are keeping the wood, all insolence and cheekiness.

They are probably the most defiant couple, too.

“I–“ He pauses, trying to remember. “No, I don’t think it is.”

She gives him a curt nod.

“For some time, I disliked my name. The old stories tell of a woman in love with a man, who withered away at his rejection.”

She picks the axe back up and starts hammering at the tree trunk.

“Hm…” Bellamy narrows his eyes as he watches the violence of her strikes. “But you like it, now?”

Her movements slow down.

“Yes.” She presses her lips in a thin line. “After my first blood, I finally gathered enough confidence to tell mother that was not me. As an answer, she took my hand and said, ‘Oh, dear Echo, you will not die of sadness this time.’”

Bellamy frowns, straightening himself to look at her.

“Falling in love and being wrecked by it are two different things,” he states.

Echo fixes him with hard eyes that he can’t actually understand. It unnerves him now as much as it did back when they’d first met.

“Are they?”

* * *

When Bellamy stops at the Mountain’s entrance, Miller almost crashes into him. Instead, the boy swivels to his right and puts a hand on his shoulder to keep balance.

It would have been funny, if it wasn’t for the tombstones that spread out in every direction, as far as his eyes can see.

Bellamy hasn’t been to Mount Weather in almost five months. After they had buried their dead, volunteers from the Ark had raided the facilities in search of medicine, food and supplies. Their intentions were good, but none of the initial 100 had wanted to go near the place.

Even now, he can still feel the nervous energy in Miller.

When Echo approaches them, her steps are careful. Bellamy has learned enough about her to know that this is how she displays surprise, so he decides not to question her presence.

“You didn’t do this.” She gestures sharply towards the graves.

Miller glares at her, like he has done since the feast. He is obviously unimpressed by her harshness, but Bellamy knows it goes further than that, knows how unwaveringly loyal the boy can be.

“No,” Miller says, “this has Clarke written all over it.”

And it does.

Bellamy hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it, because he had been doing a very good job at not thinking about Clarke Griffin. The space she left empty besides him has been filled by a number of people — Abby, Kane, Raven —, and their continuous babble is as good a distraction as any.

He thinks that Clarke could be standing in front of him, however, and it wouldn’t have shocked him more than this.

Bellamy begins to walk, and Echo and Miller follow.

“We thought that we could burn the bodies,” he explains to no one in particular, “give them some peace. I couldn’t have imagined…”

His next step falters.

Although most of the tombstones look blank, the ones in front of him have some sort of design carved into them. It’s not the most polished craftsmanship, but the intent is clear as day: a butterfly, a sun, an ocean wave. They are childish drawings, like the ones Octavia did when they could afford crayons.

Immediately, Bellamy knows whose graves these are.

“The children, huh?” Octavia asks as she reaches them. Monroe comes along, helping Raven through the uneven ground.

“Always knew she was a softy behind all that seriousness,” the mechanic remarks, a bittersweet smile on her lips.

Octavia stares ahead, and the crease between her brows tells Bellamy that she’s reconsidering something.

“Why would she bury them?” His sister continues to frown at the grave. “Fire would have been easier, if she wanted to get rid of the bodies.”

Bellamy kneels down and raises his hand to trace the heart carved onto the rock’s surface. He can hear Raven kick the ground with her crutched leg, but doesn’t turn to look at her.

“Clarke probably didn’t want it to be easy,” Monroe points out.

Raven clicks her tongue at that, impatient with their misconceptions. “Clarke probably wanted to have something to remember them.”

Her words give him pause, and Bellamy has to take a moment to weight their truth. In spite of how much he resents her for leaving, he also comprehends the reasons behind it, has to face those ghosts every day.

He hadn’t been strong enough to come back here, though, so Clarke had done what he couldn’t, and Bellamy thinks he might love her. Not for this, but for all the other little things that he has tried and failed to ignore.

x

The sun settles as they pull the last of the mattresses from the Mountain’s entrance. They couldn’t have accomplished this without the help of the Ice Nation, their manpower and horse-drawn carts, but Bellamy can’t bring himself to feel grateful.

Mostly, he just feels tired.

The whole day, Clarke’s existence had clung to him like a shadow, a prickling sensation in the back of his neck. She probably spent a lot of time there, he supposes, trying to quiet the demons inside her soul. He wants to know if it helped.

For Bellamy, there is no forgiveness here. This is just the site of another one of his failures.

“You’re thinking about her,” Miller says, joining him at the back of the group.

It should probably unnerve Bellamy that he is so easy to read, but it’s Miller; he has been around since they fell to Earth, unchanging in this terrifying world.

The reassurance that comes with his presence is what Bellamy imagines having a best friend feels like.

“I’m fine,” he responds, adjusting the rifle in his hands.

Miller shrugs his shoulders, and Bellamy knows he won’t let this go.

For a moment, they watch as Monty helps Raven into one of the carts, seating her next to Octavia.

Miller is looking directly at him when he continues, “If this is her way of making up for murdering these people, then she’s got it all wrong.” Bellamy opens his mouth to say that she didn’t _murder_ them, but yeah, that’s exactly what they did. “You can’t correct the past.”

“Then what do we do?” Bellamy asks, more harshly than he intended, which earns him a scoff.

 “You keep saying that you aren’t a hero, that you aren’t our king or our leader. But you’re what we have, Bellamy.” Miller smirks, stepping towards one of the nearest carts. “You want redemption? Then start by forgiving yourself.”

Bellamy glowers at his retreating back.

He preferred Miller when he was quiet.

Through the corner of his eye, he can see Echo walking towards him. She looks unbothered by the rowdiness of her people, who dart around the campsite with the same liveliness they had seen in the feast.

Bellamy turns and studies the pack in her hands, frowning.

“Are you going back to the Ice Nation?” he asks, annoyed by the look Echo send him. He recognizes pity when he sees it.

She nods, but remains silent, so he tries again.

“Are you coming back?”

Echo shakes her head. It might be sorrow in her expression, but it’s difficult to tell. She has always seemed too severe for something that humane.

“It’s time for me to go home,” she explains. “I saw the way you looked at those graves today. I can only imagine how you must look at her.” She takes his hand, traces his knuckles with her thumb. “And I will not die of sadness, this time.”

Bellamy doesn’t know what he should say. Echo isn’t wrong — she almost never is —, but he had been ready to accept her into his life.

Clarke has never been an option.

“I wouldn’t do that to you,” he says after a moment, turning his hand to hold hers.

Echo’s smile is unbelieving. Then, she pulls away from him, back to her usual stoicism.

“The trade will continue, as our marriage was never part of the initial agreement.” She bows her head to him. “May we meet again.”

Bellamy considers her; the sharpness of her features, the respect in her eyes. He likes her very much, but not enough to keep Echo from finding her own happiness.

So he leans forward to press a kiss to her forehead and whispers, “May we meet again.”

Later, when Echo is already in a cart, taking the reins of the horses, Bellamy calls her name.

“How do you think I would look at her?” he asks, indifferent to who else might hear them.

The Grounder woman smirks when she looks at him, and Bellamy wonders if she, too, sees him as a friend.

“Like you were Hades, and there was no one else in the world with whom you would rather rule.”

With a wave of her head and a pull of the reins, Echo is gone.

* * *

The second time Bellamy thinks of leaving, the idea creeps up on him in the middle of a council meeting and he just — he just keeps thinking about it.

They are discussing trade agreements, because winter is ending, but the ground is dead and the Arkers were not cut out for this kind of hardship. It makes Bellamy want to spit on Kane’s face, because hardship is the only thing that he has ever known, even as an Arker, and he imagines it’s very easy to talk about allying with other tribes when the 100 have already done the dirty work.

While the past five months or so have been difficult, the blatant antagonism is somewhat new. It had started with Echo’s departure and, then, been aggravated by Lexa’s visit.

“We need her protection,” Kane tries for the hundredth time. “We have been talking to the tribes, but she is the Commander.”

“Of a dissolving alliance!” Bellamy interjects, gesticulating wildly. “We have better chances if we keep ourselves unaffiliated. Our trade with the clans will keep us afloat until spring, and my people are already working to recreate the greenhouses you had in the Ark.”

He can tell that Kane is not completely satisfied with this answer, but it’s the Chancellor who moves towards him this time.

“Your people?” She raises her eyebrows, shaking her head. “Mr. Blake, I know that we are in a challenging position, but there are no sides here. They are our people, too.”

But they aren’t. Abby’s people came down with the Ark. And yes, many of them have died, many of them have lost the people they loved, but they hadn’t been on the ground when Jasper was hit with a spear. They weren’t there when Wells and Charlotte died, nor when Murphy came back to cause an epidemic.

No matter what Abigail Griffin may say, the 100 are not her people.

So Bellamy thinks about leaving.

He knows that Octavia would follow. His sister has Grounder braids in her hair and dark ink that wraps around her ankle and arms, but her eyes still sparkle with every new place they find, with every new book and waterfall and lake. She has the wonder of a girl who never really lived, but always wanted to, and it’s the only reminder he needs to understand that she is still O.

She looks like their mother, more and more with each passing day. It’s a bit strange, because they are so different in the way they talk and act, but it’s also kind of great, because she’s a Blake above everything else and that means they will never be alone in this world.

“Are you asking, big brother?” Octavia laughs when he goes to her. “Cause that’s pretty idiotic of you. Of course I will come. Who else would save your sorry ass?”

From the look in her eyes, Bellamy knows that she’s being dramatic for his sake.

“If it means keeping you around, I don’t really mind being the damsel in distress.”

Octavia snorts, and even Lincoln cracks a smile from behind her.

She pulls away from the Grounder and plants a kiss to her brother’s cheek, before moving towards the engineering area, where Raven, Wick and Monty have set up shop. Bellamy looks at Monty and tries not to think of their arrival to the ground, when she’d walked away from him for the first time, and of all the people that are missing from this picture.

“Where are you going, O?” he asks, blinking away the ghosts.

But his sister smiles when she turns to him, and it feels like the world is shifting back into place.

“I’m gathering the troops, of course!”

Lincoln comes to stand at his side as they watch her with Raven. There’s admiration in the man’s eyes and a calmness that hasn’t been there since the Mountain. It’s the effect that Octavia has, this ability to keep going.

Bellamy likes to think he has a bit of that too.

“You will come, won’t you?” he says to Lincoln, unable to keep the fondness from his voice.

“Yes.”

Bellamy nods, still staring ahead.

“I don’t think I’ve ever thanked you,” he starts, “for keeping her safe, being by her side when I wasn’t.”

“You never had to,” the other replies, before facing him fully. “But she’s not why I’m going, Bellamy. They will all follow you, the children and even some of the adults. You were made to lead these people.” He hesitates, rolling his shoulder back. “And I am your people.”

There’s a moment of silence while Bellamy tries to think of how to reply.

They are saved from the awkwardness of Lincoln’s words by Jasper, who comes traipsing down towards them. He is back to wearing the goddamned goggles, which is good and ridiculous in several ways, but his gaze carries a weight that wasn’t there before.

“You’re leaving, then,” he squeaks out, face contorting. “Just like that.”

Bellamy feels the urge to run a hand through his face, but knows that this is not the time. He’s tired of the drama and tired of the apologizing, but it’s been months since the last time Jasper even looked at him without glaring, so he supposes he will take this as progress.

“You don’t have a say on what I do, Jasper.” His words taste harsh, but his tone is careful. “You’ve been stumbling around this camp like a confused fly for close to six months. Who are you to question what I do?”

Jasper recoils, but the furrow of his brows shows irritation. It’s better than the emptiness from before, because at least Bellamy knows how to handle anger.

“Who am I?” The boy seems to choke on his words. “I’m– I’m…”

“You wanna know who you are?” Bellamy moves forward, towering over him. “You are an ungrateful bastard. You are the guy I traded my life for when Murphy went psycho and you are the one who saw me in that mountain, risking my mission so I could keep Maya breathing. It didn’t work out, but Maya didn’t die so you could just give up.”

It’s exactly the wrong thing to say, because the expression on Jasper’s face twists with fury.

“Maya didn’t _die_.” He is frantic now, eyes wide behind the goggles. “You killed her. _You_ and _Monty_ and _Clarke_!”

Bellamy only processes the punch once Jasper is already on the ground. He heaves a sigh and rotates his wrist, checking to see if there’s anything broken.

And then he remembers something that Lincoln told him on one off the many sleepless nights that followed their return to camp Jaha.

“Life knocks you down.” He crouches down, leveling his gaze with Jasper’s. “So get back up.”

The boy blinks. He doesn’t look happy, but his lip is burst and his hands are scratched from the gravel. Honestly, Bellamy had been expecting more of a fight.

Monty is beside them in an instant, with careful hands that take his friend’s chin, and examines the injury. Octavia is there too and she nods her head at the situation, as if pleased by how Bellamy handled it.

“Do you need me to get the chancellor?” Miller asks, approaching the group.

Monty gestures vaguely with his hand. “It doesn’t _look_ like he will need stitches.”

“I’ll help him clean it,” Bellamy tells the two. “We take care of our own.”

Jasper looks up at him and it’s almost weird to see the spark in those eyes, the admiration that hasn’t been there in so long. The boy shrugs, adjusting his goggles.

“This is but a flesh wound.” He laughs, weakly and hoarsely, like his throat is unaccustomed to the effort. “And you’re right. We do take care of each other.”

Monty shifts his gaze to Miller, before looking back at Jasper, and his mouth keeps opening and closing, as if he’s unsure of what he should say.

“Does this mean you’re coming with us?”

Bellamy smiles, because if there’s something they can always count on, it’s his sister and her bluntness.

Jasper licks the blood off his lip, frowning.

“I just—” He huffs out a breath. “I just don’t want to be left here. I don’t want to be alone anymore.”

Monty puts a hand on Jasper’s shoulder and grins, while the other sort of smiles at his knees.

“You were never alone to start with,” the boy tells his friend.

It’s progress.

* * *

It has been six months since Bellamy last saw Clarke. Their time apart already exceeds the time they’ve known each other, but this fact doesn’t stop him from missing her, from wanting to know what she would have to say about his arguments with Kane and Abby.

He can’t remember what Clarke looks like, anymore. He can recall general things about her appearance — blonde wavy hair, blue eyes, hips and breasts and lips —, but they could be anyone’s, really.

Which is why, when Bellamy looks up to the Dropship’s door and finds a girl dressed in leather, it takes him a second to realize who she is.

“You’re here,” she exclaims in awe, mouth curling into a smile. He had almost forgotten about the beauty mark next to her upper lip and Bellamy is so shocked that he just stares at it, unblinkingly.

Raven is the first to move.

She limps across their old camp with uncanny agility and throws her arms around Clarke. He has never thought of the blonde as short, because she is always so imposing, but Raven basically swallows her in that hug.

Monty is next, and he approaches them with much more caution, standing awkwardly besides them. He needn’t worry, however, because Clarke pulls him in as soon as Raven lets her go.

Bellamy thinks that time is a strange concept. The past months on Earth feel like a lifetime, but not even a year has gone by, yet. He knows that the planet is still going around the sun, changing seasons and all that. He had seen it happen from the Ark.

But this still feels like going full circle.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” Clarke says, looking straight at him.

Octavia snorts. Miller rolls his eyes. Lincoln probably does too.

Bellamy fights back a smile and loses. “Welcome home, Princess.”

**Author's Note:**

> I have been writing this for so long now, it's insane. I tried really hard to keep them in character, so I would love some feedback regarding characterization.  
> Also, slow burn Bellarke.
> 
> The song is "I found" by Amber Run.


End file.
